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In France, the far right has an advantage over the other parties: it knows just how to exploit people’s fears and misery. The larger parties seem resigned to wait while the situation worsens, in the hopes of forming a broad coalition against the extreme right. This would be doomed to failure. But the way forward should be clear: no-one had any time for Jean-Marie Le Pen during the movement of protest which swept France at the end of 1995.

Twenty years ago in France, the Front national (FN) was an insignificant electoral force. Ten years later, on 24 April 1988, its leader, Jean-Marie Le Pen, stood for the presidency of the republic and received 4,375,000 votes or 14.39% of votes cast. So, rather than dwelling on the latest turn of events in the regions in 1998 and the barriers that some would say have been broken down (1), we would do better to look at what happened between the late 1980s and early 1990s. For since then, the same causes have produced the same effects.

Moral incantations or even ballot rigging are no use. In a country like France, the far right has one advantage over the major parties: it knows how to exploit the sense of despair and disorientation many feel. While the larger parties are resigned to sit and do nothing (citing market constraints and the global economy), the balance of power between the strong and the weak worsens. Meanwhile, the Front national militants are busy offering commitment, militancy on the ground, and ideological struggle in place of the sorry doctrine of resignation.

Their programme lays emphasis on the decline, if not decadence, they say they are trying to combat. This responds more closely to the way part of the electorate - often the most vulnerable group - sees its own existence than to the hearty proclamations of the high priests of the single currency and the computer revolution. Talk of the latter is bound to sound provocative in a country experiencing growing social (...)

(1) Since the 1983 municipal elections, the right has conducted a
campaign at times reminiscent of that of the Front national,
establishing a link between illegal immigration, delinquency and
crime and invoking the need to halt the “invasion”. In 1986 Jacques
Blanc signed a regional agreement with the far right. As for the
socialists, the election in 1992 of Jean-Pierre Soisson (at that time
a minister under François Mitterand) as chairman of the
regional council of Burgundy was achieved with the help of National
Front voters. The following year, Roland Dumas was elected chairman
of the French Foreign Affairs Committee in the same way.